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Religion is selfish, blinkered and immoral
AC Grayling: Religion is selfish, blinkered and immoral: http://www.independent.co.uk/argument/Commentators/grayling010700.shtml 'Religious fanatics murder, bomb and terrorise in the name of their faith' . The Independent Onlne, 1 July 2000. The writer is reader in philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London.
When politicians consult priests on moral matters, it is time to start worrying. Does it imply bankruptcy of policy, and a scrabbling for ideas? Does it suggest that a mask of sanctimony is being sought to cover policies that need disguise? Or – worse – do the politicians really believe what priests say?
Both of Britain's main political leaders have turned to religious figures lately, Tony Blair to the maverick Catholic theologian Hans Küng, William Hague to a vocal figure of America's "Religious Right" who believes that public welfare provision should be replaced by private charity. Hague's aim is simply to find new packaging for old right-wing policies. Blair's case is more troubling. He has genuine religious convictions, which prompted him to say at Küng's Tübingen conference yesterday: "A society where there is religious faith will always, in my view, be inherently more likely to pursue the good of mankind." His view is troubling because it is false: religion is precisely the wrong resource for thinking about moral issues, and indeed subverts moral debate.
It does so because it is irrelevant to the practical questions of an ethical life. Modern societies value personal autonomy, achievement in earning a living, providing for a family, saving against a rainy day, and being rewarded for success. Christian morality values the opposite. It tells people to consider the lilies which take no thought for the morrow. It tells believers to give their possessions to the poor, warns that a well-off person will find heaven unwelcoming, and preaches subjection to a deity. Such a morality contradicts the fundamental norms of contemporary society.
It is also irrelevant to modern sexual attitudes. Almost all religions confine sex to marriage, and their more orthodox members oppose homosexuality, contraception and abortion, and restrict women to the domestic sphere. Most people ignore the contrast between such views and today's ethos, and the churches accordingly either temporise or contradict their own earlier teachings.
But religious morality is not merely irrelevant, it is anti-moral. The great moral questions of today concern human rights, war, poverty, and the vast disparities between rich and poor. In the Third World a child dies every two-and-a-half seconds because of starvation or curable disease, while in the first world churchgoers decry pre-marital sex and debate whether divorced couples can remarry in church. By focusing attention on trivia, gross harm is done to the cause of good in the world.
But religion is not only anti-moral, it is often immoral. Elsewhere in the world, religious fundamentalists and fanatics incarcerate women, mutilate genitals, amputate hands, murder, bomb and terrorise in the name of their faith. It is a mistake to think that our own milksop clerics would never behave likewise, for it is not so long in historical terms since Christian priests were burning heretics at the stake or mounting crusades against them, whipping people or slitting their noses and ears for having extra-marital sex, or preaching that masturbation is worse than rape because at least the latter can result in pregnancy. To this day adulterers are stoned to death in certain Muslim countries; if the priests were still on top in the once-Christian world, who can say it would be different? If one looked to religions to provide historical examples of the moral life in practice, one would have to forget a great deal of immorality.
Dispassionately considered, no system of religious ethics adds up to much. Christianity is jejune in its principles. Nietzsche pointed out that the Beatitudes, which state that the poor, the meek and the downtrodden are blessed and will be rewarded in an afterlife, bespeak the psychology of an enslaved people – he meant the Jewish experience of exile in Egypt before Moses. He might have added that they have served the purposes of the comfortably placed throughout history, reconciling the poor and humble to their lot and helping to prevent uprisings.
What little Christianity offers in positive moral injunctions is indistinguishable from the Judaism that preceded it, or from Mohism in ancient China with its ethic of brotherly love and its concern for widows, orphans and social justice.
But neither the Judaeo-Christian nor the Mohist ethics compares to the richness or insight of "pagan" Greek ethics, or to present-day concerns about human rights and animal rights, which are much broader, more inclusive, and more sensitive than anything envisaged in religious morality.
Moreover, concern for the welfare and rights of people, animals and the environment motivated by a sense of the intrinsic worth of these things, and not by divine threats and promises, is the only true source of morality.
This last point is a clincher. Religious ethics is based on a sanction of posthumous rewards and punishments. It makes goodness the diktat of a supernatural being. You do good, by the lights of your religion, in order to achieve eternal bliss. If there are indeed supernatural powers in the universe, it might be prudent to do what they require in the interests of saving your neck; but the motivation is not a moral but a self-regarding and self-interested one. If I see two men do good, one because he wishes to escape punishment by a supposed supernatural agency and the other because he respects his fellow man, I honour the latter infinitely more.
Saskatoon schools may teach Christianity: http://www.nationalpost.com/ Parents
at odds over place of faith
James Cudmore. National Post. 9 Feb 01.
Two years after it withdrew the Lord's Prayer from its schools' daily routine, the Saskatoon public school board is considering a Christian education program for the children of religious parents.
Don Morgan, chairman of the Saskatoon Public School Division, confirmed his board is evaluating a proposal by a group of Christian parents to offer a faith-based education program to interested families.
"We have had a request to look at it and we will give it complete and careful consideration," he said. "We would have to look as well very closely at the specific curriculum and what is being reinforced in the classroom, but if we can do it legally then we will consider how we can implement it and how it would work."
The proposal, modelled on the Logos Christian Education program already in place in Edmonton, would see Christian children receive instruction in a separate classroom where a religious atmosphere would be as important as the provincial curriculum.
The proposal is facing stiff opposition from a group of concerned Saskatoon parents -- one of whom also sought to have the Lord's Prayer banished -- who claim the public school system should be free of divisiveness.
Ailsa Watkinson, a professor of social work in Saskatoon and the daughter of a United Church minister, said Logos Christian Education would divide students in public classrooms along religious lines.
"The idea of allowing one religious group prominence in public education does not fit with our principles of freedom of religion and freedom from religion," Ms. Watkinson said. "I consider the Logos program to be a form of Christian indoctrination in public education."
Dr. Watkinson, who is the author of a book on education, student rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said the very value of public education -- to build decent citizens who contribute and care for society -- would be threatened by the presence of optional Christian education in the classroom.
"I believe that public education has a responsibility to discuss moral values, issues of respect and so on," she said. "But I am very afraid that this would be the undoing of public education."
The Logos program was developed in Edmonton in 1995 after a group of parents approached their school board to determine whether Christian instruction had a place in public education.
Gloria Chalmers, an Edmonton Public Schools supervisor who was involved in those early discussions, said the board was quickly able to develop an adjunct Christian education program that fit within the secular provincial curriculum.
"There weren't any big hurdles at all. It is simply the instruction of the provincial curriculum within the Christian environment."
The Logos program boasts 1,094 students from kindergarten to Grade 9 in eight different schools across Edmonton. It has become an accepted educational alternative within the public system, Ms. Chalmers said.
Logos is a popular moniker within the evangelical Christian community that refers to the Bible in Greek as the "word" of God.
It is this association that concerns Dr. Watkinson, who said she disagreed with the Christian adherence to the Bible as a literal document and a guide for life.
She said evangelical Christians use the Bible -- and their faith -- as a tool to maintain patriarchal dominance and force women to submit to the will of men. Such beliefs should be kept far away from impressionable youngsters, she said.
"I watch some of these fundamentalist religious organizations use their religious freedom to bring harm to women and minorities and children. I can't for the life of me understand why this hasn't been challenged."
About Ailsa Watkinson:
Ailsa Watkinson, BA, BEd, MEd, PhD Saskatchewan, Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Regina, Saskatoon.
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; Home page: http://www.usask.ca/ Ailsa M. Watkinson; Email: ailsa.watkinson@usask.ca Department: Educational Administration / Extension Division
CHILD CORPORAL PUNISHMENT: by Ailsa M. Watkinson and Anne McGillivray http://www.nlta.nf.ca/HTML_Files/html_pages/publications/bulletins/april98/punishmt.html . . . Canada is at the forefront of human rights, as signer and ratifier of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and as a leader in the promotion of human rights throughout the world. Although Section 43 is identified as a central human rights problem in Canada, repeal is not about protecting our international reputation. It is about protecting children from injury, violence and debasement. It is about respecting human dignity where it begins --; in childhood.
THE USE OF FORCE: http://www.nlta.nf.ca/HTML_Files/html_pages/publications/bulletins/june98/force.html Another View of Section 43 (Criminal Code of Canada), by Edward Hancock. He argues for retention of Section 43.
My comments and related case:
As you may readily impute from my comments in these Religion pages and in my Letters to editors, I am firmly opposed to the proposed introduction of the Christian education courses. For an interesting similar situation, see the following:
Florida Citizens File Lawsuit Against Unconstitutional "Bible History" Classes: http://www.aclu.org/news/n120997a.html American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Press release, Dec. 9, 1997.
FORT MYERS, FL -- Lee County parents and other concerned citizens today filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop the Lee County school district from teaching an unconstitutional "Bible History" course that uses the Bible as though it is a history textbook. Serving as co-counsel in the lawsuit are the Florida law firm of Steel Hector & Davis, People For the American Way and the ACLU Foundation of Florida.
"Citizens of Lee County who saw and heard the School Board's actions sincerely believe the Bible History curriculum adopted violates the First Amendment through its endorsement of a sectarian point of view and its introduction of religious exercises into the public schools," said Thomas Julin of Steel Hector & Davis, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
"Whether Bible stories are the ‘gospel truth' is a matter of faith, not literal history," said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida.
"Over a decade ago, the federal courts prevented religious zealots from evangelizing public school children with the teaching of the Biblical story of creation as science," Simon added. "We expect the courts to similarly invoke constitutional principles to prevent the Bible from being used as a history text in Lee County."
"Public school officials are not allowed to use public school classrooms to promote religion and teach religious lessons," said Carole Shields, President, People For the American Way (PFAW). "But that is exactly what Lee County school board members are trying to do with this course. This class would be perfectly appropriate for Sunday school, but not for public school."
According to the complaint filed today in US District Court for the Middle District of Florida, the Lee County School Board voted in 1996 to develop and offer a two-semester Bible history course. An announcement specified that the course would feature "use of the Bible as a historical document."
The board later adopted an Old Testament Bible history curriculum developed by a local school district committee and a New Testament curriculum created by a private Religious Right-affiliated group known as the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, of Greensboro, North Carolina, which has the stated purpose of persuading public school boards throughout the United States to offer high school classes "to study the Bible as a foundation document of society and the blueprint for our Constitution." *
[* WRP: Even this bit of history is mistaken! The Constitution was specifically not based on the Bible, nor on Judaeo-Christian ethics. (If it were, stoning to death would still be the penalty for being an atheist or for committing adultery!) Rather, it was based on the best of secular ethics at the time, and has stood the test of time very well.]
The school board adopted the curricula in part against the advice and constitutional objections of its own superintendent, attorney and outside counsel. This case is believed to be the first in the country challenging use of the National Council's Bible curriculum in public schools.
The ACLU of Mississippi and PFAW recently successfully sued local school officials in Mississippi on behalf of plaintiff Lisa Herdahl to stop a similar Bible history course that was being taught in a Mississippi school district.
The Lee County lawsuit is expected to pit the two civil liberties groups against the Pat Robertson-supported American Center for Law and Justice, which has offered its services to the Lee County School Board.
See also the site above for additional links, and the following:
ACLU American Civil Liberties Union Home page: http://www.aclu.org/index.html
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